Eye on the Gauges

Nine ways to monitor your recovery

Last month we discussed the importance of developing short-term and long-term recovery strategies. In this issue, we look at how to monitor how well your body is recovering from training.

By recording a few simple measures in your training diary each day, you will gain insight into how your body responds to various training and lifestyle factors in order to help prevent over-training, illness and injury. You can improve your recovery and running performance by using this newfound knowledge to adjust your training program and fine-tune other aspects of your lifestyle.

1. Early morning heart rate: If your heart rate when you first wake up in the morning is more than five beats per minute higher than usual, you may be coming down with a bug or be overtired from training. In that case, it is wise to avoid hard training sessions for a few days. Check your waking heart rate for a week to determine what "normal" is for you. Your heart rate increases by about 10 beats per minute when you get out of bed, so check it as soon as you wake up (if possible, avoid using an alarm).

2. Quality and hours of sleep: To monitor your sleep patterns, rate the quality of your sleep each night on a scale from one to 10, and record how long you slept. A reduction in sleep quality often has a negative impact on running performance. Although reduced sleep quality is frequently associated with overtraining, it can also be caused by a variety of non-running stresses. The number of hours that you sleep is not particularly important for any one night, but over several nights a sleep deficit can impact your recovery and ability to adapt positively to training.

3. Weight: Check your weight several times per week, always at the same time of day. If you have a small decrease in weight for a couple of days, you are most likely dehydrated, which can easily be corrected. Weight loss over several weeks indicates that you are not eating enough calories for the amount of training you are doing, are overtraining, or have an illness.

4. Diet quality: A lack of energy can often be traced to poor food choices. In particular, low carbohydrate intake for a day or two can leave you feeling flat during training. Evaluate the overall quality of your diet each day on a scale from one to 10, and note any foods that you feel hindered your training. Rating the quality of your diet will remind you on a daily basis to select the right foods.